Nyza
Human female, born LY 753, in Sorret. Died 825. Grand Sorreter (791-825). At the time of the banishment of the First 50 Elves by Grand Sorreter Cazzul in 773, Nyza (pronounced nī·zə) had nearly completed her apprenticeship as a Sorreter. Her friends knew she against the banishment, though of course she was in no position to do anything about it, at the time. But in 785, when as a master-adept she joined the Council of Magicks, her opinion in this matter became common knowledge (not that there was anything that could be done about it now, as far as she could see). However, while the matter of the elves was long since done with, knowledge of Nyza's position, unbeknownst to her, fostered a sense of hopefulness in a young apprentice named Eric, that one day his own desire to start a similar project (the creation of merfolk) might be permitted. Still, it wasn't until 807 that he approached her seeking permission to go ahead with his plans. She agreed, conditional upon the acceptance of Arch-bishop Darren. He also agreed, and Nyza became an important member of the team Eric assembled to help him with his project. Prior to her becoming Grand Sorreter in 791, Nyza developed various important spells which helped lead to her acceptance in that position by the Council. Firstly, in 787, she developed a spell called intangibility, a new application of the force field spell which had been developed centuries earlier. This intangibility spell is commonly misunderstood; people tend to explain it as being used to make the caster intangible, so that, for example, they could walk through walls. In fact, the way the spell works is that the force field it uses causes anything which touches it from the outside, to become intangible; so technically, it would be more accurate to say that a wall moves through the caster, though of course that's also inaccurate, because walls can't move. It's easier to explain by saying that if something were thrown at a person who cast an intangibility force field around themselves, that object would become intangible as it passed through them, until it came out the other side of the force field and once again became tangible. In any event, as a means of self-defense, this application was unnecessary, because standard repulsion force fields worked just as well to prevent objects from striking a caster by acting as a shield, and they used less mana than intangibility. As a means of moving through solid objects, it was impractical, since the force field touching the ground beneath the caster's feet would cause the ground to become intangible, and therefore the caster would be pulled toward the center of the planet. It also wasn't possible to cast a force field around just one part of the body, as that would disconnect the part enclosed by the field from the unenclosed part, as if, for example, a limb were suddenly sliced off by a very sharp blade. (It should be noted that 52 years later, Coman would develop a "variable gravitational field" which could be combined with intangibility to make Nyza's spell practical.) However, a mere three years after Nyza developed intangibility, in 790, she herself developed a secondary application for translocation, the translocating of oneself. She used the original translocation spell (developed in 766 by Cazzul), in conjunction with intangibility and the creation of a beacon, to allow translocation to work in spite of the fact that during the actual moment of transit, the caster's consciousness would not exist, and therefore couldn't be used to reform the caster at his or her destination. This application quickly became the predominant meaning of the word "translocation," and qualified Nyza for the position of Grand Sorreter. Intangibility wasn't the only spell Nyza developed that involved force fields. Another was called a scubspell, which she developed in 808, to allow members of the merfolk project to breathe underwater while searching for fish to use as DNA donors. It would also be used after the completion of the project for humans to visit merfolk underwater. The scubspell surrounds the caster's body with a force field filled with air; it also includes the use of translocation to transport exhaled carbon dioxide out of the force field and fresh oxygen in. See also *List of Grand Sorreters Category:People